Jacob's Well Church

In this message we call people to share God’s heart for hospitality which is welcoming a stranger as a guest and letting that guest become a friend. In this message we ask our people to take the step to serve in the JW community. We also call people to Join a Group.

Needing to cope, and struggling to cope, are inescapable parts of the human life. While many of us tend to isolate and convince ourselves we're "fine" during times when we're struggling to cope, the true calling of the Church is to cope together in community. This means we're called to offer help to those struggling to cope, and to ask for and receive help from others when we're struggling to cope. Coping in community produces a strength and hope that we simply don't find anywhere else.

In this message we ask people to consider the ways they cope and if they could replace some unhealthy coping behaviors with others that are healthier. When we have healthy patterns in our life, we create margins and we are better able to take the punches that life throws at us. In this message we are challenged to compare ourselves not with each other but with the person we were yesterday.

In this message we begin to understand the unique work that trials and griefs play in the testing and perfecting of our faith, making God real in our everyday life.

The word cope means to deal effectively with something difficult or to face and deal with responsibilities, problems, or difficulties, especially successfully or in a calm or adequate manner. The word, to cope, comes to us through an Old English word that is derived from Latin which means to receive or take a blow with the fist. Life will sucker punch you. It will hit you at the worse time, when you are most vulnerable in a way that is often unfair and even cruel. What is worse is that these challenges rarely come one at a time. They come in groups, each trial multiplying the effect of the other. They feed on each other. Resilience, mental toughness and endurance are all required to live this life well in a way that honors God. What are the practices and patterns that we should be establishing in our lives that will allow us to face the persecutions, disappointments, pressures, suffering, trials and tests we face in this life? In this series we challenge people to set healthy patterns so that we will flourish in days when all is well and we will cope when life comes at us with both barrels. A sucker punch is a punch made without warning or while the recipient is distracted, allowing no time for preparation or defense on the part of the recipient. It is often thrown from behind. The term is generally used in situations where the way in which the punch has been delivered is considered unfair or unethical. Often it feels as if life or even God has sucker punched us. In this message we begin to deepen our understanding of pain, trials and loss.

One truth that is repeated in the Bible from beginning to end is that many people who think they are going to Heaven are not going to Heaven. In this message we will discuss four beliefs that will cause a person to almost go to heaven.

Jesus isn't interested in a performance. Instead He desires lives of worship full of justice, mercy and grace toward the people around us.

When we worship together, our experience of the fullness of God's presence deepens, becomes exponentially more powerful than we could ever imagine. When we worship together, the depth of our knowledge, personally, of God's love and faithfulness in all seasons of our lives, becomes our shared knowledge, celebration of, response to, the overwhelming love of God. When we sing our pain, our love, our faith in God, together, Jesus is seen, heard, felt, turned to, and believed in; more and more people turn to God and enter the journey we're on--the journey of worship that touches every area of our lives.